Intel is advising a group of more than 70 companies as they encourage industry standards for "cloud computing".

The company today unveiled several new initiatives under its "Cloud 2015"
vision aimed at making cloud-based Internet computing more interoperable,
secure and simplified.

Intel?s Cloud 2015 vision has three key elements: a "federated" cloud that
allows enterprises to share data across internal and external clouds; an
"automated" network that automatically allows the secure movement of
applications and resources to significantly improve energy efficiency in
data centers; and PC and device-savvy "client-aware" clouds that know what
types of applications, commands and processing should take place in the
cloud or on your laptop, smartphone or other device ? thus taking a user
and specific device?s unique features into account.

Intel will support these goals by creating software and building new
capabilities into Intel Xeon processors, which include features such as
Intel Virtualization Technology (Intel VT) and Intel Trusted Execution
Technology (Intel TXT) that form the basis of cloud computing today.

As a step toward Cloud 2015, Intel helped create the Open Data Center
Alliance, a coalition of more than 70 leading businesses that together
represent more than $50 billion in annual IT investment and that have
cloud research or projects underway. Alliance Steering Committee members
include BMW, China Life, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lockheed
Martin, Marriott International, Inc., National Australia Bank, Shell,
Terremark and UBS.The alliance will lay out future hardware and software
requirements that lead to more open and interoperable cloud and data
center solutions. Intel plays a unique advisory role within the alliance,
whose initial membership is focused on end user companies rather than
technology providers.

Intel embraces the Open Data Center Alliance?s vision and goals and plans
to deliver products and solutions consistent with these goals. Intel will
work with its hardware and software partners, engaging the industry to
innovate on open standards, delivering a faster ramp to the next stage of
the Internet, and delivering an open, interoperable and secure cloud that
will empower the next generation of business, movies, gaming, music,
social media and other yet-to-be-invented Web services.

"The industry has an opportunity to accelerate the potential of cloud
computing, delivering even better industry economics through this
transformation," said Kirk Skaugen, vice president and general manager,
Intel Data Center Group. "With the Open Data Center Alliance we now have
the world?s top businesses focused and actively engaged with Intel and the
high-tech industry, accelerating solutions to the cloud?s key challenges.
The server industry has gone through an amazing transformation since the
Intel Pentium Pro?s introduction in 1995; our goal is to ensure that cloud
computing continues to deliver breakthrough economics based on the same
fundamental principle ?innovation on open, interoperable standards."

Absent from the working group announced on Wednesday were companies that
have already become major forces in cloud computing, like Google and
Amazon, which hosts cloud computing services for other companies.

The goal of the Intel Cloud Builders program is to provide a path to the
Cloud 2015 vision. Intel announced an expansion of this program that
brings together system and software solution partners to provide proven
cloud building recipes and practical guidance on how to deploy, maintain
and optimize a cloud infrastructure.

While the alliance will determine future requirements for cloud
infrastructure, the Intel Cloud Builders program will help bring these
requirements to life with full solutions. The program now has a total of
20 reference architectures with several more on the horizon. It represents
a community of the most critical providers of technology in the cloud,
including Canonical, Cisco, Citrix, Dell, EMC, Enomaly, Eucalyptus
Systems, Gproxy, HP, IBM, Intel, Joyent, Microsoft, NetApp, NetSuite,
Novell, Parallels, Red Hat, Univa and VMware.